CheezIt
by green see-through ghosts
Summary: Beatrice...there is a demon running loose in this church." A series of AU oneshots circling Hidan, Temari, and the church.
1. Altercation

First of all, this pairing is addictive. Temari was never supposed to be a part of this...but things happen. Blame firefly and ShadowSilk, and while you're at it, check out their stuff. Secondly, Hidan and Temari belong to Kishimoto-san. Thirdly, this is not meant to be offensive to anyone! If you take offense, I'm sorry! Fourthly, this is my first time writing Hidan, so your criticism and comments would be very much appreciated! This is also my first try at a real crack-fic. So please, please, please, help me out here.

**Cheez-It**

by **green see-through ghosts**

**WARNING**: AU, strong language, and a bit of an OOC Temari. Please forgive me.

* * *

"So I was thinking that since the pastor hasn't given me a fucking job yet, I might as well do whatever until he gets around to filling out my fucking paper-work, you know? And after the shit-head actually gets his work done, I won't have to fuck around in the whatever jobs anymore."

The middle-aged church secretary stared blankly at the man who had just finished speaking. The woman's modest pants suit and boring, brown bob were at sharp odds with the tight blue jeans and half-open, button down shirt of the man across from her.

"I'm the new junior pastor, after all," he added, reaching back with both hands to smooth his already slicked back silver-white hair away from his peaked forehead.

"Is this April First?" the secretary asked confusedly, swiveling around in her padded chair to reach for the wall calendar. The Little Critters calendar was on January, though, and it was Sunday the twentieth.

"No, but it _is _Penguin Awareness Day," The secretary answered herself as she noticed the little penciled-in words in the top of the twentieth square. She turned to eye the man; he _did _have white hair and a rather pointy nose, but that was where the penguin resemblance ended.

"I don't give a fuck about penguins," the man muttered, confirming her doubts in the worst manner. "I just want to know what the hell I can do until they have my job ready." Had the man pulled out a two foot machete and begun fighting invisible enemies Rambo-style while screaming, "The Birds! The Birds!", he could not have elicited a grander reaction from the suddenly red-faced, open-mouthed, shocked secretary. Horrified did not begin to describe her expression; she was appalled, shocked, aghast, sickened, disgusted, revolted, dismayed, horror-struck -- yes, all of those and more.

She sputtered for something to say, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.

"What the hell?" the young man asked curiously, arching a single, finely curved eyebrow in confusion. "Did I say something?"

Before the secretary could even think of answering, the office door swung open to reveal a pale, twenty-something girl wearing a blue-jean skirt and a fitted maroon hooded sweatshirt. Her light blonde hair was pulled back into a set of four spiky pigtails, and a mug of black coffee was gripped tightly in her right hand. She stepped halfway through the door, then shoved a sealed envelope at the white-haired young man, her tired teal eyes focused somewhere on the ceiling.

"Mr. Hidan," she said, her voice so low that it was nearly inaudible. "The Pastor wanted me to give this to you." For a brief second, she looked at him, then raised her eyes to the secretary. A startled look that had begun when she'd seen the new pastor crossed her blank face as she noticed the woman's look of absolute abhorrence; she sipped her coffee, blinking sleep back from her eyes in hopes that she was hallucinating. Her hopes seemed to be in total vain; when she opened her eyes, the secretary still looked shell-shocked and the new pastor still looked hot.

"Thanks," the man said casually as he pulled the envelope from her hand, glancing up to meet her eyes for a short second.

"No problem," she replied, raising an eyebrow as she looked back at the secretary, who was, sadly, still gaping. Then, without another word, she stuffed her hands inside the front pocket of her sweatshirt and exited, letting the wood door slam behind her. Equally silent, the silver-haired man tapped the letter down in the envelope before ripping off the end and tossing the tattered paper on the desk.

"_You're _Mr. Hidan?" the secretary finally gasped, her face turning fifty different shades of red within the space of five seconds.

"Christ, you don't have to sound so surprised," the man muttered, offended, as he dumped the folded paper into his hand, dropping the rest of the envelope beside the torn end. The secretary simply stared at him as he unfolded the page and scanned the few lines of scrawling cursive.

"You know, never mind," he said as he reached the bottom. "It looks like they assigned me to…crèche? What the fuck is that? Ah well." Hidan stood to his feet, tucking the paper with the book and notebook underneath his arm. "Thanks for all your help…not," he said in a sarcastic tone as he left, shooting the silent woman one last puzzled look before exiting.

For a long moment after Hidan had disappeared, the secretary stared at the door, dumbstruck. Then, without a break in her expression, she reached for the cordless phone and dialed a number. It rang three times before a female voice answered.

"Beatrice," the secretary said, her voice low, shaking, and dead serious. She paused for dramatic effect, then whispered, "There is a demon running loose in this church."

--

After leaving the office, Hidan crossed the lobby and made his way down two sets of stairs and into the basement. The room was full of children from the ages thirteen to three, rushing from Sunday-school room to Sunday-school room in search of parents, friends, enemies, food, clothing, chew-toys, and entertainment. They brushed past the older and taller figure without a glance to be spared, though some of the older boys and girls did a double take at the sight of his bared chest and the heavy metal necklace that bounced against his sternum with each step.

"Room one-o-one…room one-o-one…" he muttered under his breath, sharp lavender eyes scanning the name-plates of half a dozen rooms on the left side of the carpeted basement. The plaque that read _Room 101 _belonged to a half open door to which was taped a large piece of cream-colored construction paper; the words "Four through Two" were written on the paper in multi-colored crayon with stars, hearts, smiley-faces, and flowers providing a soothing background.

"What the fuck?" Hidan muttered, stopping short in front of the door. A most hideous sound was issuing from just inside the entrance; it reminded him of a hack-saw, but more grating. A moment later, he realized that it was infantile crying, and, as a look similar to the poor secretary's crossed his face, Hidan understood the meaning of the rainbow-colored sign.

Nursery? They had assigned him to the fucking _nursery_?

A young mother carrying a small child and holding the hand of another brushed past his still figure and pushed the door to Room 101 wide open; as she entered, Hidan caught sight of a disgustingly bright room full of plastic toys, stuffed animals, puzzles, pre-school books, and a grotesque rocking horse that was grinning at him with the most disturbing of smiles. He stared at the horse for a full five seconds until the door succumbed to gravity's pull and swung back to its half-open position, breaking the tense stare-down. A high-pitched scream cut the air.

"Mommy, I want to stay with yoooooouuuu!" The last word trailed off for what seemed like ten seconds, then was cut off sharply, as if someone had slapped a hand over the child's mouth. After a short moment, the young mother suddenly reappeared, her hands miraculously empty and a triumphant, carefree smile on her face.

"Hell no," Hidan muttered, violet eyes wide as he slowly stepped away from the door. Another scream issued from somewhere inside as a child appeared at the door, as if making one last break for freedom. A pair of adult arms wrapped around it before it could get out, though, and the kid began screaming bloody murder at the top of his lungs as he was dragged back inside the room.

Hidan spun around and began walking -- hell, running -- back across the child-strewn floor, nearly dropping his stack of books in his haste. He glanced back at the door as if expecting drooling children to be chasing him, just as the blonde-haired girl who had delivered the note stepped out of a nearby classroom, straight into his path. For a split second, they saw each other, recognized each other, and had the time to think, _Oh shit _before their bodies, still moving at higher speeds than either would have desired, crashed into each other.

Hidan's books fell to the floor a second before he did. The girl stumbled backwards, nearly managing to catch her balance before dropping to the carpet-covered cement with an undignified thud. Hidan was not quite so lucky; he did a full one-eighty in midair to land on his stomach, the heavy metal necklace pinned between his bare chest and the hard floor.

"Shit!" he screamed as the spikes of the necklace dug into his tender skin. He pushed himself off the floor and into a sitting position so quickly that the girl was left blinking in surprise. While her exhausted mind was still trying to process what had just happened, he'd moved fast enough to make her head spin. Not good.

Silence fell over a good deal of the crowd; everyone turned their heads to look at the disturbance near the center of the floor.

"Christ, why can't you watch where you're going, bitch?" Hidan raged as he rubbed his hand over the red dents in his chest. "That _hurt_!" The blonde-haired girl's wide eyes narrowed in sudden anger.

" I wasn't the one looking the other way," she snapped, standing up in one fluid motion, despite the full-length skirt and two inch platform sandals. She glared down at the man before glancing up at the still silent crowd of children. "Hey," she hissed in a much quieter voice. "Can you watch your language in front of the kids?"

"No, I fucking can't," Hidan snapped as he pushed himself up. A few parents on the edge of the room gasped out-loud before they began talking very loud, herding their children towards the stairwell or their class-rooms with a new brand of speed. "I was _not _looking the other way," Hidan continued.

"Yes, you…whatever," the blonde sighed. She moved past him and bent to collect his cased book and the black notebook. The pen-written note had came open in the fall; as she lifted it from the carpet, she couldn't help but scan the scrawled words.

Her blood ran cold.

"Is this yours?" she asked abruptly, spinning around and holding the note in front of his face.

"Yes, and that's private, thank-you very fucking much."

"I said," the blonde hissed, stepping forward menacingly, "watch your language, bud." She shoved his books against his chest and began stalked away. "And don't bother with the note," she added, turning to glare at him over her shoulder. "I don't need any help in the nursery."

Hidan watched, his eyes still narrowed, hand rubbing his sore chest, as the blonde crossed the room, pushed the door to Room 101 wide open, and disappeared inside just as another worked left, letting the door slam shut behind her. The basement was nearly empty by then; a few short seconds later, there was not a person in sight.

Hidan stood in the center of the room for another moment, until he could hear the first strains of music start up in the main sanctuary. Then, mumbling a vivid string of curses under his breath, he crossed to Room 101 at a jerky walk, the scowl on his face enough to pickle cucumbers.

He opened the door.

A small child standing just on the other side looked up at him with wide, innocent eyes as it sucked on its middle finger.

He swallowed hard, then smiled.

It stared at him for another moment, frozen in mid-suck, then ran away screaming.

"Fuck," Hidan muttered as he stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

"I told you I didn't need help!" the blonde exclaimed as she scooped the screaming child up into her arms. She already had a drool-faced toddler balanced on her left hip; another was holding onto her skirt, nearly pulling it down with the force of its grip.

"Look," Hidan sighed. "I really, really, need this job here, so-"

"As a nursery-worker?" she said, eyes widening in shock. "No _way_."

"Hell no!" Hidan snapped. "I'm the new junior pastor, damn it!"

"Language!" she snapped back. Both of the kids in her arms began to cry -- long, gasping wails that had them turning positively purple. "Now look what you've done," the blonde said crossly as she walked over to the row of hung coats and discarded shoes and kicked off her sandals. "Please, just leave," she sighed as she began rocking the two kids.

"I can't just leave," Hidan snapped. "The service has already started."

"So who cares?" the blonde said quietly as she attempted to sooth the two screaming children. Hidan could barely hear her over their shrieks, plus the loud, gun-shot like bursts coming from the three kids who were slamming large pieces of chalk against the old green chalkboard; the steady drone of a spinning toy held by a child in the corner; the slam of a plastic hammer against a plastic ball; and the overall excited chatter that filled the room. "Just walk in," the blonde continued, but if Hidan heard her, he made no acknowledgement. "Okay?" Still no reply. "Hello? Mr. Hidan?"

Growing more irritated by the second, the blonde turned away from him and moved across the room to a child-sized couch upon which she set the two wailing children. They screamed even louder as she stood up and jogged to a set of shelves placed high enough on the wall that none of the kids could get their grubby hands on anything. The shrieks increased in volume as she reached onto the very top shelf and pulled a silver and black contraption away from the wall, a black electrical cord trailing after it. The children at the chalkboard began to yell at each other, each one deciding that they needed the other's chalk. The kid with the hammer started banging on the wall. The droning toy increased in pitch.

"Oh God, make it fucking stop!" Hidan moaned, clamping his hands against his ears as he squinted his eyes shut; his books fell to the floor unnoticed. "This is even the good kind of pain!" he wailed.

The blonde stopped short and stared at him in disbelief for a long moment before placing the roughly square, silver box in the middle of the floor. After plugging the cord into an outlet and fiddling with a few dials on the side of the box, she hit the main switch.

A cloud of bubbles burst out of the whirring machine, iridescent shimmers that filled the air like a cloud. The shimmering globes were propelled upward at a high speed before they drifted down towards the light blue carpet, flitting gently around in the movement of the air.

"Look guys," the blonde said as she stood, her voice carrying to every set of ears in the room. "Bubbles."

The screaming stopped. The chalk-beating stopped. The toy ceased to drone. The hammer ceased to fall. And, moving like one who is either very high on marijuana of very, very tipsy, the children made their way to where the bubbles were falling, their hands uplifted to catch the rainbow shimmers as one-of-a-kind smiles broke out on every single face. The wonders of chalk-boards and hammers were forgotten in the delights of the bubble. The only sound was the soft whir of the machine and the joyful laughter of the children.

"That's right," the blonde said with a sentimental smile and a sigh. "We love bubbles, huh?" She watched a moment longer, then, with an inwardly steeling deep breath, turned to face the new junior pastor.

"What…the…fuck," he breathed, staring at the bubbles with widened, shocked eyes as his hands dropped to his sides. "You're teaching them idol worship!"

"What?!" the blonde cried, incredulity breaking out across her face.

"Look at that!" he exploded. "They look like they're fucking high! They're _worshipping _those…those…"

"Bubbles?" she suggested, tone extremely dry.

"Bubbles!" Hidan hissed. "Of all the things you could use to influence them, and you choose bubbles!"

"Uh, excuse me?" the blonde said. "I don't see you doing anything to calm them down."

"Look, blondie-"

"It's Temari, all right?" the girl snapped. "And just get out, will you? You really are upsetting some of the kids."

"Listen, blondie," Hidan said, stepping forward and spinning her around so that they were both facing the laughing children. "That," he said, pointing at the scene, "is a fucking sin."

"Do you have a better idea?" Temari snapped, turning to glare at him with her hands fisted on her hips.

"Well, of course," Hidan said with a roll of his eyes.

"What?"

"Tie 'em and gag 'em," he said lightly. Temari choked on air and started coughing; when the breathing troubles cleared, it was revealed that she was actually laughing. Hidan was not amused; he frowned down at her, as if asking what the fuck she thought was funny.

Temari noticed. The laughter stopped abruptly.

"You were serious?" she gasped, her blue-green eyes wide with disbelief.

"Uh…yeah?"

"Get out," Temari said firmly. "Now."

"No, seriously," Hidan said. "I can't leave these kids alone with you. You'll corrupt them, or something."

"What are you talking about!" Temari freaked. "I have been babysitting most of these kids since they were born!"

"That doesn't mean you're doing the right thing," Hidan snapped back.

"Listen, bud," Temari hissed. "You think you can handle these kids better than I do?"

"Uh…yeah?"

"Then fine," Temari snapped, turning around and crossing the room to pick up a notebook and pen from the wide, sippie-cup covered counter. "You see what you can do with them." She dropped down in a rocking chair in the corner with a long sigh. "And no cussing," she added as an afterthought.

"Whatever," Hidan muttered under his breath. Kicking his book and notebook against the wall, he made his way through the group of eight bubble-infatuated toddlers to where the bubble-machine lay. With one jerk on the cord, he unplugged it. The whirring stopped and, after a moment, so did the bubbles.

Eight pairs of wide, shining eyes turned on Hidan. Eight little faces looked up at him expectantly. Eight little attention-spans began their countdown.

"Okay," Hidan announced. "This," pointing down at the bubble-machine, "is a blasphemy. An abomination. An idol."

One of the three-year-olds turned and tackled the boy standing next to him. Another burped and sat down on the floor, reaching for the plastic hammer.

"This," Hidan continued, still pointing at the machine, "will send you to hell so fast that your little bodies will ignite from the speed."

A small boy with brown curly hair and twinkling blue eyes stumbled up to stand right in front of Hidan, his face turned up to stare into the man's strange eyes.

"This is evil," Hidan said. "Do you understand?"

"I want some Cheez-Its," the boy declared in a loud, lisping voice.

"What the hell is a Cheez-It?" Hidan barked.

"Hey," Temari snapped. Hidan pointedly ignored her.

"I want some Cheez-Its!" the boy repeated.

"Like I said, bud, what the fuck is a Cheez-It?"

"Hey!" Temari hissed. "You can't cuss around kids."

"And why not?" Hidan asked, looking back over his shoulder to scowl at her.

"Because they'll repeat it!" Temari snapped. Without thought, she set aside her notebook and jumped to her feet, reaching up onto the shelf to grab a bag of square orange crackers from the top shelf. "If you want a snack, go sit down at the table!" she ordered the kids. As if she had said some soft of magic word, all eight little beasts were suddenly sitting at, and in some cases on, the table, their grimy hands uplifted as they cried for food.

"Like…birds," Hidan said as he surveyed the sight. Their mouths were opening and closing; their cries were shrill and piercing. "Little birds…chicks…_what have you done to these children_?!"

"If you want some Cheez-Its, you need to be at the table, not on it," Temari said cheerfully, a plastic smile glued to her face. "If _you _want to be helpful," she told Hidan as the kids moved into miniature plastic chairs, "help pass these out."

"I _don't _want to be helpful," Hidan grumbled. "And what the hell happened to me seeing what I could do with them?"

"I can't let you," Temari said simply as she dropped approximately eleven crackers in front of each child. "I have a responsibility to these kids. You're the one who would be corrupting them."

"How the hell would _I_ corrupt them?"

"Do you hear yourself talking?" Temari demanded. "Or is there a little dwarf in your mouth he just adds the cuss words as you speak?" She glared at him in righteous challenge; Hidan simply looked confused.

"Why the fuck would there be a dwarf in my mouth?" he asked, tilting his head to one side in thought.

"Please," Temari sighed. "Just stop talking if you can't do it without cussing."

Both adults were silent as Temari finished handing out the crackers. Although most of the talk from the kids was unintelligible, Hidan heard enough to alert him to the fact that Temari was right. They _would _repeat it.

He glanced at her to see if she'd noticed, but her face was no more red than before, nor were her eyes any more narrowed.

"How, uh, long are they down here?" Hidan asked, glancing up at the clock to see that no more than ten minutes had passed.

"Another forty-five minutes or so," Temari said, glancing up at him warily. "Why?"

"Just…uh, what do you f-…do with them for an hour?" he asked, scratching the back of his head, still staring at the clock.

"After the snack, we'll do a story-time-"

"Nothing blasphemous?"

"Of course not," Temari sighed. "And I don't think you can prove that bubbles are blasphemous either," she added indignantly.

"Trust me, Blondie, they're blasphemous." Temari rolled her eyes at his assuredness.

"Whatever. After the story we'll do some singing-"

"I bet you make them listen to Cradle of Filth."

"I do not!" Temari exclaimed. "Good grief, would you just listen for a second?"

"Whatever."

"After the songs, we'll have a little bit of game time. Like, duck, duck goose type games."

"Ring around the rosey?" Hidan asked, eyebrows raised. Temari stared at him. "It was always my favorite game," he said with a shrug.

"You _do _realize that the little poem is about the Black Plague," she stated.

"Uh…yeah? Isn't that the point?"

"And hopefully," Temari sighed, cradling her forehead in her hands, "the service will be over by then."

"What if it's not?"

"Then I'll figure something out," Temari stated noncommittally.

"You mean we…right?" Hidan glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes, a self-satisfied smirk growing on his lips.

"No," Temari said. "You're going to go upstairs for the rest of the service, remember?"

"I already told you, as the new junior pastor, I can't leave you down here to pervert the kids any which way you want." Despite the smile on his face, Hidan seemed dead serious. "For all I know, you're probably a pedophile."

Temari gaped at him for a long moment, her eyes narrowed into vivid slits.

"If we were anywhere else," she hissed, her voice barely discernable, "I would kill you right now."

"Bring it, Blondie." The effect of the casual challenge of his words was ruined by the arrival of a Cheez-It to his face; the cracker bounded off his forehead and fell down his unbuttoned, black shirt. "Shit!" he exclaimed, spinning around to face the table. "Which one of you fuckers threw that?"

With a rough growl of frustration, Temari pushed him aside and stepped forward, hoisting the bag of crackers up high.

"Who wants more Cheez-Its?"

As she circled the table, placing a few more crackers in front of each child, Hidan attempted to get the cracker out of his shirt; after some intense jumping up and down -- which reminded Temari to do the Father Abraham song later -- the cracker dropped to the floor and was crushed by a rubber-heeled shoe.

"That'll teach you to walk around half naked," Temari said smugly. "Clean that up, please."

"Bitch," Hidan grumbled under his breath as he knelt down to brush the crumbs of the unfortunate Cheez-It into his hand. Just as he lifted his head, another cracker met his face -- this time his nose. Hidan caught sight of a little snub-nosed boy -- the same blue eyed kid who'd asked for the damn crackers in the first place -- drawing his arm back in aim again, an orange cracker gripped in his little fist.

"Don't even fucking think about it," he ordered in a low, grim voice. The boy looked at him for a second, then at Temari.

"Alexis, eat your Cheez-Its, not Tyler's," she was saying, one hand on the shoulder of a black-haired girl dressed in a frilly pink dress who was grabbing at the crackers of the orange-haired boy beside her.

The blue-eyed boy looked back at Hidan, smiled, and, instead of throwing the cracker, stuffed it in his mouth.

"Want one?" he asked as fluorescent crumbs overflowed his mouth.

"Uh…no." The boy's hand scrambled around on the plastic table until it encountered another Cheez-It.

"Here," the boy said as he held the cracker out in Hidan's direction. Startled -- I said no, didn't I? -- Hidan looked down at the cracker in the grimy white hand, then up at the boy.

"No thanks," he said. Unperturbed, the boy stuffed the cracker into his mouth without swallowing the remains of the other.

"Keyan," Temari said, attracting the blue-eyed boy's attention with her surprisingly gentle voice. "One at a time, remember?"

"Want one, Auntie?" he asked, holding out another cracker in her direction.

"Sure," she said with a smile, even though she had an entire bag gripped in one hand. And, the smile never wavering, she leaned across the table, accepted the cracker, and popped it inside her mouth. "Thanks, buddy," she said after a moment of chewing and a single swallow.

Hidan smirked at the scene. _Just a little softy after all, isn't she?_

"You're welcome," the little boy said. Then, in the same soft lisp as all his other words, he turned towards the girl beside him who was reaching for his crackers and said, "Don't even fucking think about it."

Angry could not even begin to describe Temari's expression as she turned her eyes on the still smirking Hidan.

If looks could kill…

…then Hidan would be burning.

**_Ten Minutes later…_**

"Which story do we want to read?" Temari asked the kids sitting in a half circle around her cross legged figure.

"Sampson!" the orange-haired boy demanded.

"Noah's Ark!" another child screamed.

"David and Goliath!"

"Moses!"

"Lot's wife!"

With a snarl already forming on her lips, Temari glared at the figure sprawled out on the floor at the back of his group.

"You know, the one where God smites down Lot's lazy-ass of a wife for looking back at the fucking sinful cities? Also known as the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah?"

"Let's read about Sampson," Temari said cheerfully. The children cheered, and Temari smiled. But underneath the expression was a glare of fury that would have made most normal men tremble in their shoes.

Hidan simply grinned as he flipped her the bird.

**_Twenty-five minutes later…_**

"Okay, let's sing Peace Like a River," Temari said, hand resting on the buttons of the CD player. Both of her bottom pigtails had long since been pulled out by grasping children; her hair surrounded the bottom half of her face in a wild jumble that matched the psychotic look in her eyes very nicely.

"No, let's sing Convert, You Fucking Heathens, Convert!"

"Is that even a song?" Temari demanded.

"Uh…yeah?" Hidan turned to face her, oblivious to the children who were watching and, surprisingly, _listening_. "You know?" He looked at her for another moment, then started to sing in a falsetto pitch. "Listen up you whores and sodomites/we're here to save your souls/with our Bibles we will beat you/until the day is old?"

"Get. Out. Now," hissed Temari after a long moment of silence.

"Teach us!" cried the children in remembrance of the catchy tune.

"Sure thing," said Hidan, though to whom is yet unknown.

**_Thirty-five minutes later…_**

"Ring around the rosey, pockets full of posey, ashes, ashes, we all fall-"

"DOWN!" bellowed Hidan as eight giggling children collapsed on the floor around him. "No, no, no!" he snapped, bending down to pull the kids back up. "I told you, no laughing! You've got to do this seriously, got it?"

"Hidan, let them play their game," Temari sighed.

"This is not a fucking game," he said darkly, glaring at her over his shoulder. "Now, shut the hell up and let us finish." He turned back to the kids. "When you fall, it has to be like you're _dead_," he explained. "You know?" Releasing their arms, Hidan collapsed to his knees, then his side. His eyes closed. His arms went positively limp. His tongue poked out of his mouth.

Giggling like hyenas -- which would mean they were shrieking, and right in Hidan's ear -- the two children leapt on top of his prone figure. Their example was immediately followed by the other kids.

"What the hell!" Hidan raged as he tried to sit up. "Get off me, you little psychos! Ow! Not the hair, imbecile! Not the hair!"

"What were you saying about this being serious?" Temari asked with a grin.

"Bitch!" Hidan raged. "You've got to help me out here-- gah, that's personal!" A little girl had pulled his heavy rosary from around his neck and slid the chain over her own and was now prancing about in her filly blue skirt, purple shirt, and spiked necklace. "Hey, you little mother-fucker, give that back!" Hidan gasped, his hand outstretched towards the girl until the blue-eyed Keyan sat on it.

Temari laughed out-loud, her eyes crinkling merrily.

"Now, play nice, Hidan," she admonished him lightly. "We don't want to have to send you upstairs to your parents, do we?"

"Bitch," he muttered as Keyan began tickling his arm.

**_Forty-five minutes later…_**

As the last child left the room in the arms of its burdened parent, Hidan collapsed on the miniature sofa.

"I can't see over my fucking knees," he declared. He was quite right; the coach was so low that his face was blocked by his knees.

"Scoot over," Temari ordered as she crossed the room, carrying notebook in one hand and her sandals clenched in the other. Hidan grumbled as he scooted over a few inches, making room for her on his right side. With a sigh, Temari dropped down beside him, smiling at the sensation of being ten times too big for something.

"Listen," she said as she lay her sandals beside her feet. "I think you've got the wrong religion, buddy."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Hidan snapped.

"You seem to be pulling all the wrong things out of this one," Temari informed him. "I mean, Convert, Fucking Heathens, Convert?" She raised her eyebrows. "You sound a bit pre-covenant to me."

"Listen, Blondie," Hidan said gruffly. "Are you calling me a fucking Jesus-killer?"

"Do you hear yourself?" she asked for the second time. "You're condemning and racist and uncharitable and have the worst mouth of anyone I've ever met-"

"Thank-you."

"-and that isn't the point of this religion," Temari finished.

"All a matter of opinion, Blondie."

"It's Temari," she sighed.

"Whatever."

"And it's not a matter of opinion," she added.

"Is too."

"You want to take it up with the Head Pastor?" Temari snapped. "Who is, by the way, my father?"

"Uh…no?"

"You're an idiot, Hidan," Temari said, unable to keep a smile off her face.

"And you're a fucking bitch, seriously."

With a sigh, Temari reached over the edge of the couch and snagged the bag of crackers that was laying on the floor a few feet away. She slid a deft hand inside and withdrew an orange cracker, eyeing it for a moment before popping it into her mouth.

"Cheez-It?" she asked around the cracker, offering Hidan the bag.

"Whatever," Hidan muttered, shoving his own hand inside the bag. A little warily, he stuck a cracker in his mouth and began chewing.

A strange look entered his eyes; he stopped, then chewed again, then stopped again, then finished chewing and swallowed the cracker.

"What the fuck?" he muttered, eyeing his small handful as Temari crunched away beside him.

"What?" she asked, raising her eyebrows as she ate another cracker.

"You know…" he said slowly, "…these things aren't half bad."

"Kids usually have good taste, you know," Temari informed him wisely.

"Well, that sure as hell wasn't what I meant," Hidan muttered.

"What, you think I'd poison them?"

Hidan grinned as he looked over to meet her teal eyes.

"Something like that."

* * *

Reviews would be wonderful :)


	2. Objective

Okay, lots of author's notes here! I have many ideas for oneshots between Hidan and Temari in this setting, so I decided to get some stuff out of the way. Since these are AU fics set in a CHURCH, I needed to get both Hidan's and Temari's opinions about Jesus and love and the Bible out there. This is that. Of course, this is a wonderful reason now, but at the time I was writing it, I really just needed to relieve a lot of the pressure of the arguing going on in my own church right now. The dissension pretty much rips my heart out, and my sixteen-year-old opinion doesn't seem to mean much to most people. So this was also a way of getting those opinions and that pain out of my head and onto some paper...or a screen, whatever.

So, YES, this contains a lot of my own opinion (not all, but some.)

And also, I'd just finished reading the breathtaking **Quotidian **by **firefly **and it left me feeling as if humorous Hidan/Temari was pretty much against the law until a set period of respectful seriousness had been fulfilled.

The next chapter(which I was going to just mash together with this, but then did not like) will be the one thing to crush all your hopes of a Hidan/Temari romance. Because I will never, ever write such a thing...well okay, I admit, we change as we grow older. Correction: the me of me right now will never write such a thing. I'll give you a hint, though: I support Temari/Shikamaru **forever** (insert standard change-as-we-grow-older-correction.) Alright...I think that's it. Besides the fact that Hidan and Temari belong to Masashi Kishimoto...

**Objective**

by **green see-through ghosts**

NOTE: **AU **and **Hidan's bad mouth**. Also, talking about **WORLD-WIDE LOVE**. If you can't handle it, I advise you take small steps and begin by loving someone similar to you. Eventually move on to someone different...and even more different...etc.

* * *

Hidan:

Ever since I was a child, there have only been a few people that I admired. One was my grandfather, a man who lived and died for a cause of his own. One was my mother, a woman who showed me that love and pain could never be separated. The other was Jesus, the son of God who realized that I could not control my circumstances, but held me accountable nonetheless.

When I was five, my Grandfather was murdered by the police of the small, Mexican town I was born in for being radical and inquisitorial. My mother found the funds to ship herself and her three children to a place where living was not deemed a crime, and there we lived.

When I was seven, I began talking to Jesus. Instead of the tough and course language I leaned from the people around me, I spoke only the plain truth to him, in words that I thought he'd accept. It was years before I realized that he did not care how my words were presented to him; still, I remained as eloquent as I could, believing then, and to this day, that he was worthy of my respect -- even if no one else was.

When I was fourteen years old, my mother committed suicide to escape a physically and sexually abusive relationship. She did not overdose, or shoot herself, or slash her wrists; we found her in the harbor, feet buried in the muck, lashed to the pilings of the dock with a knife in her gut and a last letter to her last surviving child sealed inside a zipped plastic bag and clenched inside the hand that was not clenched around the salt-washed butcher knife. She told me that she hadn't given up on Jesus, and that he hadn't given up on her; instead, it was simply her time, her time to be free of the indignity and pain and suffering. Because, after all, there came an end even to Christ's endurance of the cross.

Alas, the church decided it was not her decision to make; indeed, decided that _she _had been the one to make the decision without guidance from Jesus. Born and raised Catholic, I was told that she was sent straight to hell for her sin of suicide.

I cursed Jesus -- once, terribly, irrevocably. But he forgave me, as he did every other sin I'd ever committed, and we left the domed church, the chanting, the icons and the rituals, behind in my search and his guidance for the truth.

I'd spent years testing churches; the routine was simple. I come in, the unchristian Christian, and wait for them to transform me. Some traits would never be erased, but it was part of their test to see if they could actually pin what mattered and what was as fleeting as a wisp of cloud on a hot summer's day. And if, at the end, they succeeded, Jesus and I would move on. If not, I tried to help them see the error of their ways.

Ten years later, I reflected back over the journey with bitter-sweet memories. Was I perfect? More so than many, but no more than most. Could I be called a hypocrite? Of course, when one pretends to be a hypocrite each day, they must accept the use of the term in connection to their name. Did I understand? There was nothing to understand in perfect and indefinable love.

--

Temari:

There's a distinct difference between choosing to become a Christian and being born one, though I was never entirely sure where this difference actually mattered. I mean, I understood that the drug-addict who'd recently committed probably took more stock in the words, "My chains are gone/I've been set free," than I did, but then again, I figured that my knowledge of scripture and the application of it to everyday life would probably make up for it. Well, until I was about fifteen, that is. I guess a passionless life is sort of like a world without a sky: once you look past the fun and games, there's nothing to greet you but black emptiness.

So there I was, bored and depressed and wondering why God wasn't speaking to me, easing my fears and troubles and creating a lifeline with his love. Then I realized -- and yes, I was proud of this at the time -- that maybe God wasn't speaking to me because I wasn't speaking to him. Silly, really, how something as simple as this almost brought me down for good.

I'm naturally serious, and I like to be in control. I like my friends, but I like them as serious as me. I love everyone; you just won't be able to tell until you get to know me. But most of all, I love my Jesus. And in the end, I think that's all I'm going to be able to stand on. I have nothing that I can show him -- anything I've done won't mean squat to him when we finally meet. Nothing good, just that terrible acknowledgment that I was lost if not for him. As a serious person who likes to be in control, there's nothing harder than acknowledging that there's nothing I can do but hold onto him. But no one ever told me that it'd be easy, and I got over my own presuppositions years ago.

So when something challenges my view of the perfect Christian, I take a bit of time to think. And then I tell them -- hands down, serious as can be, that the most important aspect of the relationship between Jesus and us worthless humans is love. And though they usually laugh at me, or accuse me of lying, I hold steady. Human love is difficult and misguiding, but the love of a divine savior…now, that's something different.

--

"Hidan, could you shut up for one minute? Just _one_?"

"Come-fucking-on, Blondie, I'm praying here."

"I realize that, but I have to get this paper finished-"

"Who fucking cares? Go finish it in the nursery, or something."

"Listen, Hidan," Temari growled as she slammed her fist down on top of the spread pile of papers surrounding her at the long conference table. "All I'm asking is for a bit of silence so that I can figure out this thesis statement, got it?"

"If you can come up with a decent thesis in one minute, I'll fucking leave," Hidan promised. Temari didn't even answer; the jeans and sweatshirt-clad girl typed away furiously at the white laptop in front of her, her eyes darting back and forth from the papers on the table to the computer screen. Hidan watched her every movement with an appraising air while counting silently in his head.

He wasn't entirely sure how he'd ended up waiting for his meeting with the senior pastor in the conference room with Temari, who was working last-minute on a big paper for one of her college classes, but then again, he wasn't entirely sure he minded. He wasn't blind enough to miss out on the fact that the two of them were nearly twenty years younger than most other staff members, and he did realize that the amount of time they spent together was directly monitored by the head pastor. He wasn't sure if this was a good sort of monitoring or not, but then again, it wasn't exactly important to his final goal. And, what the hell, he figured that if he was going to change the church, it might be a good idea to get an ally on his side before moving on to the big game.

Temari only knew that it was his constant muttering that bothered her, not his actual presence. _As if they aren't irreversibly entwined_, she thought with an inward snort.

"Time's up," Hidan announced after what seemed much longer than a minute. He waited a moment as Temari scanned the screen, rereading the somewhat lengthy sentence she'd created. "Well?"

"…The church as a whole can never begin to heal the damage it has done to the world at large until it is unified under one banner of love; if we continue to bicker amongst ourselves, all that the world will see is all they are trying to be free of."

The moment of silence that followed her words seemed even longer than the first. Then, with a grin, Hidan leaned across the table, a hand raised in the air -- flat, fingers slightly spread, facing Temari.

She stared at him uncertainly for a moment, then cautiously returned the high-five.

"Your bad mouth doesn't _really _matter," she admitted contemplatively as their palms pressed together for a brief moment of shared warmth and rough skin.

"Got that fucking right," Hidan said with a lopsided grin.

"Why do you act like-"

"What better way to make people fucking _think_?" Hidan leaned back in his chair, still grinning. "I mean, some of the people in this shitty church make me feel fucking sick."

"You pretend…to make us see? Act to end our acting?"

"Don't go all fucking poetic on me, Blondie," Hidan snorted.

"But-"

"I don't think I've ever told you how much I hate the word _but_," Hidan said contemplatively. "Well, I'll just tell you now, I fucking hate it. It's a shitty word that shouldn't have a place in our damn vocabulary. You give this list of damn good reasons, then BUT. It ruins every fucking thing it comes in front of."

"Now who's going maudlin? Overly-sensitive to a single _word_?"

"Shut the hell up," Hidan ordered. "And finish your damn paper."

"Whatever," Temari muttered, a crooked smile on her face as she turned back to face her screen.

A moment later, a low mumbling filled the room, its origin in the slow-moving lips of Hidan.

"Shut. Up." Temari growled without taking her eyes of the screen.

"Bite me," the silver-haired pastor replied.

The grin that filled the space between them didn't make their words mean less, though it somehow managed to betray a sense of both joking and totally serious to both parties. And though neither of them was anywhere sentimental enough to say the words I LOVE YOU, neither did they think for a moment that they weren't true. Not so much by choice as by ordainment; nor by divine will as instinct. Nor did it make them mindless friends; sometimes you love the people you hate the most, and hate them for what you love them.

"By the way," Hidan said after a few minutes. "You don't tell _anyone_."

"About what?" Temari asked after a moment, glancing up from her computer.

"About my little side-career."

"You mean your acting?"

"Damn right."

"No one?" Temari shifted a little uncomfortably in her seat at the thought of keeping Hidan's confessions a secret from her father.

"Not a damn soul."

* * *

I should have just blogged. Oh well. :) Reviews would be wonderful. And, man, I hate saying this (I think it sounds so cheezy!) But if there are any questions, don't hesitate in the slightest to ask me.


End file.
